Bike-Share Debuts in Washington D.C.

Public bike-share in the U.S. hit a milestone yesterday when SmartBike DC, the first program of its kind in an American city, launched in full. Coverage in the Washington Post was heavy on the implications for D.C.’s image:

Today the city will join the ranks of Paris and Barcelona with the
launch of the first high-tech public bike-sharing program in the United
States, forcing such cities as San Francisco and Chicago to look here
to see chic alternative transportation in action in America.

One critical difference between SmartBike and its European counterparts is the size of the network. When Vélib debuted in Paris, it provided 10,000 bikes at 750 locations. The SmartBike planners are taking a gradualist approach, starting off with 120 bikes stationed at 10 sites concentrated near downtown D.C. So far, 150 memberships have been sold, the Post reports.

The fact that D.C. has cleared the hurdles of getting a system up and running is piquing the interest of other cities, according to the outdoor advertising firm that sponsors SmartBike:

"We’re getting inquiries from all around the country to see if they
can take the same program and implement it in their city," said Steve
Ginsburg of Clear Channel Outdoor.

Which American city will go live with public bike-share next? New York recently signaled its interest in a bike-share program, and Portland is actively pursuing one, despite some setbacks. The highly informative Bike-Sharing Blog has put together a Google Maps mashup showing where programs exist, and where ones are in various stages of study and planning. By my count, 14 cities are in the running to follow D.C.

The Militant isn’t sure bikeshares will fly here in Los Angeles; bicycle culture may be a reaction against autocentrism, but in a way it’s also an adaptation of it: many cyclists identify with what they ride, through either status, creativity or self-expression. Those DC bikes, personally speaking, look decidedly uncool…heh.

johnny

True what you’re saying about cyclists identifying with their ride, Militant. I saw some pretty badass low rider bikes on display myself at the Central Ave. jazz fest a few weeks back. However, i still think a bikeshare program would be useful here, for out of towners and people who don’t feel like hauling their bike onto the metro among others. I hope it happens someday.

As for the DC bikes, their ironic charm will probably go unappreciated by the K street crowd but they’re sure to be a hit with folks in Adams-Morgan.

Oh bikeshare will fly here — about three feet off the ground and crookedly. In fact what I expect is a program called Flexbike will gain a toehold and over the next several years will barely stay alive building up a loyal user base until a company called Zipbike will swallow them up, come in and relocate all the bikes people had come to depend on to DeVry locations in Woodland Hills, Temecula, Baker, and the Salton Sea.

The bikes aren’t that bad. A bit heavy, but they include a rack, generator lights, chaincase, a three-speed drivetrain, and fenders. The only thing missing is some kind of integrated lock, though it’s arguable how effective anything included would be anyway. The two different wheel sizes doesn’t make sense, either, for repair and maintenance.

A bigger problem is availability. These programs only work if you are always only about 1000 feet from a bike station. I know they’re trying to start slow, but how will they know how effective it is unless they deploy it on a scale that makes sense?

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

A fantastic new visualization of 16 bike-share systems around the world lets you see how people are using public bikes from London to Melbourne. You can watch animated graphics, for example, of bikes getting picked up in one part of town and dropped off in another during rush hour. The site, created by Oliver O’Brien, […]

On Wednesday Streetsblog declared Portland the leader in the race to launch a public bike-share program here in America. But as reader Chris Loos pointed out, a bike-share system in Washington is actually imminent. "DC SmartBike" will launch as a pilot program in the coming weeks with 120 bikes at 10 stations, available for an […]

Here’s another transportation policy success story from France. The Vélib bike-sharing system celebrates its one-year anniversary today. In April, Streetfilms’ Elizabeth Press was in Paris to learn more about it. Here is her video and report: On July 15, 2007 Paris debuted the world’s largest self-service "bicycle transit system" called Vélib outdoing previously designed bike […]

A couple of weeks ago, when I was writing about the bike-unfriendliness of some downtown government buildings, a reader suggested that I don’t just write about unfriendly places, but friendly ones as well. To that end, from now on, we’ll rotate a "bike unfriendly" place with a "best practices in biking" example be it from […]

Last week, we asked you to write questions for Navin Narang, an executive with First Pacific Holdings, the company that owns Bike Nation. Bike Nation is the company that will bring 4,000 bikes and 400 kiosks for Los Angeles’ first official bike sharing system over the next eighteen months. Barring any changes, L.A.’s collaboration with […]

Bike-share is excellent in multiple ways. It eases traffic congestion in large, dense cities. It increases transit use in suburbs and smaller cities. And in all kinds of cities, it reduces auto use. It also has its drawbacks. These are the results found by researchers Susan Shaheen and Elliot Martin when they studied established bike-share […]